Transcript Why Information Ethics? Rafael Capurro (ICIE, ANIE) The Gauteng Province Seminar on Information Ethics University of Pretoria Education Campus Groenkloof, 11th of September 2013

Why Information Ethics?
Rafael Capurro (ICIE, ANIE)
The Gauteng Province Seminar on
Information Ethics
University of Pretoria Education Campus
Groenkloof, 11th of September 2013
Introduction
Since the second half of the last
century computer scientists, such as
Norbert Wiener and Joseph
Weizenbaum, called public’s attention
to the ethical challenges immanent in
computer technology that can be
compared in their societal relevance
to the ambivalent promises of
nuclear energy.
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Introduction
In the beginning the discussion was
focused on the moral responsibility of
computer professionals.
But for scientists like Wiener and
Weizenbaum the impact of computer
technology was understood to be
something that concerned society as
a whole.
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Introduction
Half a century after Wiener’s seminal
work the World Summit on the
Information Society (WSIS)
developed the vision
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Introduction
“[…] to build a people-centred,
inclusive and development-oriented
Information Society, where everyone
can create, access, utilize and share
information and knowledge, enabling
individuals, communities and peoples
to achieve their full potential
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Introduction
in promoting their sustainable
development and improving their
quality of life, premised on the
purposes and principles of the
Charter of the United Nations and
respecting fully and upholding the
Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.” (WSIS 2003)
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Introduction
The WSIS also proposed a political
agenda, namely
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Introduction
“[…] to harness the potential of
information and communication
technology to promote the
development goals of the Millennium
Declaration, namely the eradication
of extreme poverty and hunger;
achievement of universal primary
education; promotion of gender
equality and empowerment of
women; reduction of child mortality;
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Introduction
improvement of maternal health; to
combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other
diseases; ensuring environmental
sustainability; and development of
global partnerships for development
for the attainment of a more
peaceful, just and prosperous world.”
(WSIS 2003)
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What is Information Ethics?
I define digital ethics or information
ethics in a narrower sense as dealing
with the impact of digital ICT on
society and the environment at large
as well as with ethical questions
dealing with the Internet, digital
information and communication
media (digital media ethics) in
particular.
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What is Information Ethics?
Information ethics in a broader sense
deals with information and
communication including but not
limited to the digital media.
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Why Information Ethics?
Research in Information Ethics
should contribute to address and find
sustainable solutions to the
technological challenges of the digital
age.
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Why Information Ethics?
Economic, political and ecological
activities of modern societies rely
heavily on digital communication
networks.
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Why Information Ethics?
Academic research in digital ethics should
become a core mandatory issue of
economics and business studies. Similarly
to the already well established bioethics
committees, ethical issues of ICT should
be addressed taking as a model for
instance the European Group on Ethics in
Science and New Technologies to the
European Commission
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Why Information Ethics?
ICT has a deep impact on politics
leading to a transformation of 20th
century broadcast mass media based
democracy, or mediocracy, on the
basis of new kinds of digitalmediated interactive participation.
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Why Information Ethics?
New interactive media weaken the
hierarchical one-to-many structure of
traditional global mass-media, giving
individuals, groups, and whole
societies the capacity to become
senders and not “just” receivers of
messages.
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Why Information Ethics?
ICTs are widely used for political
participation and grass-roots protest
groups as well as by liberation and
peace movements.
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Why Information Ethics?
By the same token, digital
communication networks make
possible new structures of political
surveillance, censorship and control
on individuals and whole societies.
Digital ethics should address the
question of the human right to
communicate.
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Why Information Ethics?
The Internet has become a local and
global basic social communication
infrastructure. Freedom of access
should be considered a fundamental
ethical principle similar to freedom of
speech and freedom of the press.
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Why Information Ethics?
Some of the rights stated in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights such as the
right to freedom of thought, conscience
and religion (Art. 18), the right to freedom
of opinion and expression (Art. 19), and
the right to peaceful assembly and
association (Art. 20) need to be explicitly
interpreted and defined taking the new
and unique affordances of internetworked
digital media into consideration.
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Why Information Ethics?
A free Internet can foster peace and
democracy but it can also be used
for manipulation and control. For this
reason I assess a necessity to strive
for a future internet governance
regime on the basis of intercultural
deliberation, democratic values and
human rights.
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Why Information Ethics?
The disposal and recycling of all
kinds of ICT devices that already
today have devastating
consequences on humans and the
environment particularly when
exported to Third World countries.
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Why Information Ethics?
Issues of sustainability and global
justice should be urgently addressed
together with the opportunities
offered by the same media to
promote better shelter, less hunger
and combat diseases.
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Why Information Ethics?
I advocate for the expansion of the
human rights discourse to include
the rights of non-human life and
nature. The present ecological crisis
is a clear sign that we have to
change our lives in order to become
not masters but stewards of natural
environment.
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Why Information Ethics?
Some main challenges of information
ethics dealt with issues of intellectual
property, privacy, security,
surveillance, information overload,
digital divide, gender discrimination,
and censorship.
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Why Information Ethics?
They are objects of ethical scrutiny
not only on the basis of universal
rights and principles but also with
regard to cultural differences as well
as to historical and geographical
singularities leading to different
kinds of theoretical foundations and
practical options. This field of ethics
research being called intercultural
information ethics
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Why Information Ethics?
One important challenge in this
regard is the question about how
human cultures can flourish in a
global digital environment while
avoiding uniformity or isolation.
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Why Information Ethics?
Digital surveillance of public spaces
is supposed to ensure safety and
security facing unintentional or
intentional dangers for instance from
criminal or terrorist attacks.
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Why Information Ethics?
But at the same time it threatens
autonomy, anonymity and trust that
build the basis of democratic
societies.
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Conclusion
Individuals as well as societies must
become aware of different kinds of
assemblages between traditional and
digital media according to their
needs, interests and cultural
backgrounds.
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Conclusion
The vision of an inclusive information
society as developed during the
WSIS must be global and plural at
the same time.
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Conclusion
Who are we in the digital age? As
human cultures become digitally
hybridized this process affects social
life in all its dimensions as well as
our interplay with nature. The key
task of digital ethics is to make us
aware of the challenges and options
for individual and social life design.
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Conclusion
The digital medium is an opportunity
for the subjects of the 21st century
to transform themselves and their
relations in and with the world.
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Conclusion
This implies allowing each other to
articulate ourselves in the digital
network, while taking care of
historical, cultural and geographical
singularities.
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Note
This presentation is based on my
keynote at the 2009 Global Forum on
Civilization and Peace, Korea. See: R.
Capurro: Digital Ethics.
http://www.capurro.de/korea.html
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